ers-men like Makhno-who had organized independent bands of volunteers and were fighting the Bolsheviki on their own account and in their own way. From a military point of view, the commander-in-chief was perhaps justi'fied in declining to have anything to do with irregular troops operating independently, even though they were fight ing a common enemy; but he would have had heartier support from the peasants if he had taken a more sympathetic attitude toward their representatives in the field.

The main grievance of the Cossacks, who compose so large a part of the population of southeastern. Russia, was the failure of General Denikine to give them the full measure of local autonomy to which they thought they were entitled. They had always held an exceptional position, as compared with the great mass of common peasants, and it did not seem to them that Denikine recognized this fact, or that he gave due consideration to their hereditary right of self-government in local affairs. They therefore cooled toward him; large numbers of them deserted him, and at the most critical moment in the campaign, when the Bolsheviki counterattacked in force, he found himself practically unsupported by the most militant part of the whole population.

All these things taken together weakened General Denikine, so that when the crisis came he was unable to withstand the assault of even a mediocre Bolshevik army. But his defeat was due to administrative rather than military incapacity. He did not deal tactfully with the political and civic problems that were presented to him, and consequently lost popular confidence and support.

When Denikine was compelled by pressure from the Bolshevik forces to withdraw from the northern Caucasus, he retired with the remnants of his beaten army to the Crimea, and there, disheartened by defeat, he turned over his command to General Wrangel. The latter, as soon as practicable, organized a Provisional Government, with Peter B.Struve as Minister of Foreign Affairs and M. N. Bernatzky as Minister of Finance; but at the same time he publicly declared that he was taking control only temporarily, and that, so far as he was concerned, the future government of Russia should be what the people wished it to be. Then, in

1 Struve is an eminent publicist and a prominent Constitutional Democrat who first became widely known as editor of the Russian journal "Liberation," published in Stuttgart. After his return to Russia, in 1905, he edited the daily newspaper "Polar Star" in St. Petersburg and the monthly review "Russian Thought" in Moscow, and in 1907, as one of the candidates of the Constitutional Democratic party, he was elected a member of the Second Duma. He is the author of a number of books on political and economic subjects, and has been influential for many years in Russian political affairs.

M. N. Bernatzky is a well-known economist, who was Minister of Finance in the coalition Government of Kerensky.

order to remove the causes of popular discontent that had existed under his predecessor, he took up, first of all, the land question. In solving this difficult problem he followed in general outline the plan adopted at the time of the emancipation of the serfs in 1861; that is, he combined allotments of land to the peasants with compensation to previous owners. Under this plan the peasant secured what he most wanted, peasant secured what he most wanted, viz., legal title to his actual holdings; but he was required to pay a certain sum annually into a Government fund for the future reimbursement of owners from whom he had taken land unlaw

THIS

SEA

DON

ROSTOV

Tambov

PROVINCE

OF THE

COSSACKS

BATUM

Tsantsin

CASUS

MAP SHOWS THE RELATION OF THE TERRITORY CONTROLLED BY GENERAL WRANGEL TO THE BOLSHEVIST HEADQUARTERS AT MOSCOW, AND HIS COMMAND OF HIGHWAYS TO THE SEA

fully during the period of the Revolution. Inasmuch, however, as the allotment of land is intrusted to the township (volost) councils, the peasants, who elect such councils, have virtual control of division and distribution, and to some extent of reimbursement.

In order to do away with another popular grievance, General Wrangel strictly prohibited the unauthorized seizure of grain and other property belonging to the peasants, and gave orders that if his officers or soldiers resorted to confiscation or looting they should be tried by court martial and shot. At the same time he notified the people that, whenever possible, his officers would loan them army horses in order to help them get in their harvest. He also directed that volunteer peasant organizations which were fighting the Bolsheviki independently should not be interfered with or treated as bandits, but should be aided and encouraged so long as they opposed the common enemy and observed the laws of civilized warfare.

With the Don Cossacks General Wrangel soon re-established friendly relations. By the terms of an agree

ment with their hetman, concluded on April 13, they were given complete local autonomy, and were required only to recognize General Wrangel as their commander-in-chief and to refrain from negotiating independently with any foreign government or power.

The effect of these various decrees, concessions, and reforms was to unite peasants and Cossacks in loyal support of General Wrangel and his Government. Thousands of volunteers flocked to his standard, and early in the summer he felt strong enough to move out of the Crimea and attack the Soviet armies on the northern side of the Sea of Azov. In the course of a short but brilliant campaign he drove the Bolsheviki out of Berdiansk, Melitopol, and Alexandrovsk, and he now dominates practically the whole of the Taurida province and a part of the province of Ekaterinoslav, a territory that has more than twice the area of Belgium.

This aggressive movement of General Wrangel is evidently regarded by the Soviet Government with serious concern. On July 10 the Communist Central Committee in Moscow sent to all its branches throughout Soviet Russia the following telegram:

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During the most terrible moment of the struggle of the Russian and Ukrainian peasants against Poland General Wrangel has launched an offensive in south Russia, intending to capture the most fertile sections of the Ukraine and the Don. His offensive has already caused the Soviet Republic great difficulties. Each success of the General, even the most modest one, deprives Soviet Russia of great quantities of grain, coal, and oil and causes a spread of starvation, destitution, lack of fuel, and destruction of the means of transportation. The Communist party should understand that the liquidation of General Wrangel's undertaking is an absolute necessity for Soviet Russia. The Central Committee demands that all party branches and trade unions support with all possible energy the offensive started against Wrangel. No defeat of the Poles is possible without a defeat of Wrangel. The red banner must wave over the Crimea."

General Wrangel's Government has now been recognized by France; his armies are more generally and heartily supported by the peasants and the Cossacks than the armies of General Denikine ever were, and his campaign north of the Sea of Azov has thus far been successful. If he is able to withstand the forces that the Bolsheviki will perhaps throw against him after they abandon the attempt to capture Poland, his movement into the fertile valleys of the Dnieper and the Don may be the beginning of a really national uprising against the despotic oligarchy which has ruled Russia for nearly three years. In Siberia such an uprising seems to be already in progress.

Underwood & Underwood

T

BY RICHARD BARRY

HE next President of the United States will be a middle-aged newspaper man from Ohio. His name will be either Warren G. Harding or James M. Cox. Externally their his tories are monotonously similar, and almost commonplace; each a farmer boy who drifted to the nearest large city, where he stuck through all grades of the publishing business until he controlled a leading newspaper, and in time rose from lesser political office to the highest place in his party. Neither went into politics until he was independent financially. Both emerged suddenly from comparative obscurity as National standard-bearers.

This 1920 campaign has produced less of personality than almost any other. What part of this is due to the fact that journalism, the craft whose arch-priest is anonymity, has furnished the protagonists? Mostly we have had lawyers as Presidential candidates. If not lawyers, then soldiers. The rare farmer, publicist, or professor has been the exception to prove the rule. Now we have no choice in the matter; whatever happens, there will be a newspaper man in the White House, and for the first time.

But what sort of a newspaper man? We must discard our former measures and grapple with a new yardstick. We became accustomed to estimating law

yers for public service. Were they jury lawyers, counselors, legislators, or (woe betide them!) corporation attorneys? Subconsciously we rated them accordingly. Soldiers it was easy to estimate. The chief question was: Had they commanded winning armies?

Now, is it enough to say that he is a newspaper man, and let it go at that, making a decision solely on the merits of the campaign propaganda? Or, shall we ask what kind of a newspaper man he is, wherein he specialized, wherein he succeeded, and what, therefore, may be his dominant philosophy of life?

These questions seemed important to the writer, and he went to Marion and Dayton, to the candidates themselves, to their associates and subordinates, to their competitors and fellow-townsmen, to arrive at the facts in the respective cases. Here are the two stories as he has seen them.

Warren G. Harding, for over thirty years editor of the Marion "Star," seeing the town grow from six thousand to nearly thirty thousand, and growing with it proportionately, long its most conspicuous citizen, has partaken of its nature completely. Harding is Marion; Marion is Harding.

It is a town where every one, from the President of the First National to the oiler at the roundhouse, is "folks," where nearly every house has a garage,

and where the pineapple or cedar-mop hair cut is in vogue. A town like this does not breed great newspaper men, not if they stick there. It is the sort of place that the big leaders in the chief centers come from.

One night over thirty years ago three young men-Johnny Sickel, Jack Warwick, and War'n Harding-paused outside the Elite Restaurant, in Marion, discussing a proposition to buy a moribund newspaper called the Marion

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Star," about to be abandoned. Sickel was the capitalist, having been left a legacy of nearly four hundred dollars a few days before. Warwick was an apprentice printer, and Harding had been for a few months a six-dollar-aweek reporter on a Democratic newspaper, from which he had been discharged for wearing a Blaine hat. Some one suggested that they conclude the discussion over a plate of oysters, but as they started into the Elite Harding suddenly objected. "Boys," said he, "if we buy the 'Star,' who'll pay for the oysters?"

They did buy the "Star"-for $300 cash, each a third owner. Harding's father, a country doctor, loaned him his hundred; Sickel loaned Warwick his. Now mark how destiny led each his appointed way along the path of his nature.

Sickel, quickly bored with the inability of battered type to make legible marks on paper for which the bill collectors were already dunning for payment, shortly sold his interest to Harding for a promissory note and got out, to slip from this to that and be heard from no more.

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Warwick, who, as Harding once told the writer, was the clever one of us," with a nimble wit and drawling humor, spared himself the labor of writing his news by setting it up directly at the case, and thus, to do it more quickly, his personals became shorter and shorter, with often a quotable quip. Harding went in for longer " pieces "-descriptive, argumentative, rhetorical. It was also his lot to "make up" the paperthat is, arrange the type and apportion the allotment of news, editorial matter, and advertising. One day Warwick called out from his case where he was setting type to Harding, with sleeves rolled up, over the composing stone, his grimy hands lifting the "takes" into the first page: "These long pieces of yours are all right, but what I think the "Star" needs is more little fellows."

"Right you are, Jack," responded the lanky editor, "and you are the one to write them."

So he was. Soon the papers in the

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big cities found it out, and the "little fellows" from the Marion Star were often copied in the Cincinnati, Cleveland, Toledo, and even the Chicago dailies. Then came the call to the larger journalism, and Warwick shook the dust of the small town from his feet and hoisted himself another rung up the obvious ladder. As he said "good-by" to his partner, to whom he had sold his interest for a promissory note and enough railway fare to take him to Cleveland, he added, whole-heartedly : Warren, this is too small a town for you. As soon as I am located and get my bearings I'll find a place for you.'

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"Thanks, Jack," replied he who was now sole owner of the debt-burdened Marion "Star," an obscure paper in a town barely on any map and not located at all on some, "but I think I'll stick."

After that came the long pull, the grinding, commonplace, petty struggle with compositors, carrier-boys, advertisers, subscribers. The "Star

rose

from obscurity to affluence, from being a tail-ender to first place in the town's journalism, from being worth little more than $300 to being capitalized at $80,000. So far as the writer could learn, there was in that history, which could be repeated in practically every city and town of the United States, but one unique feature.

The unique feature is this: there was never any appearance of struggle in Harding. Although many a time uncertain how he was to meet his payroll, he never apparently was anything but prosperous. Moreover, he singularly avoided contest. He spoke only good of his competitors. No one ever heard him berate a rival-at least not publicly. He grew slowly, normally, like a blessed oak deep-rooted in comfortable soil. The lightning never hit him, and if the drought came he had enough reserve strength to weather it without hurt. Of the fevers of metropolitan journalism he was as ignorant as is a country Percheron of the thrills of the race-course.

Certain rules were early established and still prevail on the Marion "Star." For instance, no cases of drunkenness or misdemeanors arising from them, unless capital crime, are ever reported there. Harding's explanation to his staff is that any gain in news value to the paper does not offset the heartache that publicity brings to the friends and family of the delinquent.

Another rule is that no news shall be published concerning the editor and his family. In later years this has become a hard rule to follow, and in 1920 an impossible one.

A while before the Chicago Convention the Marion "Star" carried this small item among its "personals:" "Senator and Mrs. Harding arrived to-day at their Mount Vernon Avenue home, where they are expected to remain a week."

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"Do you think that is news worth space in a paper?"

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"I do, sir."

"Who told you it was news?"

"Well, sir, I believe that when the United States Senator from the State of Ohio returns to his home from a long absence in Washington the people of Marion are entitled to know it."

"I don't agree with you," countered the editor-owner. "Please see that it doesn't happen again."

Then the features which are stern in repose softened into a beguiling smile as he called all his staff to him. Adopt ing the paternal attitude, he pleaded: "Boys, I know I'm going to get the worst of it from you this year. I know you are going to turn me down on my rule of keeping myself out of the paper; but I beg of you please go easy on me. Give us just as little of Harding as the law will permit."

The Marion "Star" is distinguished for three things: careful business management, a brightly written and tastefully edited editorial page, and the enterprising introduction of what are known in the business as "magazine" features, such as cartoons, the offering

of prizes for the beautifying of homes, etc., etc. It is a brightly written paper which has always avoided sensationalism and which is looked upon in Marion as a rock of reliability. Since its owner has been in public life its staff carefully avoids him in securing news in which he is concerned. An instance of this occurred when the writer happened to mention to the editor, Mr. Van Fleet, an item of local importance which the editor, with a proper news instinct, wanted immediately to publish. The writer protested that it would be necessary to get permission first from the Senator.

"That settles it," groaned Mr. Van Fleet. "He'll probably give it to the others first and let us hustle for it. I'll tell you what happened at the time of the acceptance speech. I knew he wouldn't let us photograph him, but I heard that a lot of out-of-town photographers had permission for a shot' the day before, so I slipped our man in the crowd, hoping he'd get by; but no-W.G. spotted him. The next morning early-it was the big day of the acceptance, when I thought he surely would be occupied with something more important, he called me to know what I intended for illustration that day, and finally wormed out of me that I had a new picture of him slated for a five-column space on the first page. He vetoed that instanter, and asked,